


String Theory

by GracelingwithPoiseWithoutGrace



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: AU-Everything is Sad in This Universe, AU-Modern World Without Superheroes, AU-Mulitverse Theory Is Right, Amnesia, Civil War Fix-It, Dream Sequence, Getting Back the Memories, Lawyer!Tony, Let's Talk About Important Stuff, M/M, OFC is a Murder Victim, Post-Sokovia Accords, Sad Ending Or Is It?, Soulmates, Steve Rogers is Not Captain America, Steve and Tony Reconcile, Steve is Sad and a Bad Cop, Tony Stark is not Iron Man, bottom!tony, cop!steve, they need each other, top!steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-18
Updated: 2018-04-18
Packaged: 2019-04-24 16:30:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14359278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GracelingwithPoiseWithoutGrace/pseuds/GracelingwithPoiseWithoutGrace
Summary: Tony Stark is a lawyer who's haunted by recurring dreams of another life- Flying, a man's body touching his, dying?-Steve Rogers is a drunk, washed-up cop desperate to resolve the trauma from his last failed case, the kidnapping of Mariya Stressman. While under hypnosis with his therapist Natalie, Steve begins to recall memories from another life.Then they meet- And everything they thought they knew about themselves and each other changes.





	String Theory

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by the AMAZING fan vid, “Steve/Tony (Stony) - String Theory” by JoeEva.
> 
> Check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ci2yvgnnYo8
> 
> The lyrics included in the story (in quotations between sections) are from the song "String Theory", by Les Friction, as featured in JoeEva's video. 
> 
> When I first watched the video, I was so enthralled by the story I read from it that I was inspired to write my first fan fiction! The idea of needing the experience of another life, one where they were both broken and less than they could be in order to understand each other's perspectives on the Sokovia Accords gripped me and I had to write it out. I hope you all enjoy!
> 
> If you want to gush over Stony (or Stucky, I love both, although Stony is my favourite) or anything else, hit me up on tumblr at gracelingwithpoisewithoutgrace
> 
> :)

_“In another time we would be as one_  
_In another place our lives would've only just begun”_

***

The alarm sounded. Tony threw his legs over the edge of the bed and sat up, leaning over his knees. His hands pressed into the sheets and his muscles were clenched. The wind moved the curtain and brushed his back. He shuddered and walked into his sparse kitchen, searching for the coffee mug underneath the pile of legal files.

The dreams were worse when the wind was cold.

Steve could smell his failure from the night before on his sheets. Cigarettes. Harsh body spray and B.O. And the overwhelming smell of booze leaking through the room.

He sat over the edge of his bed and rubbed a hand over his face, feeling the stubble chafing his skin. Glancing up he caught a glimpse of himself in the hotel mirror.

 _Pathetic_ , he thought, the insult barely stinging as it sunk in to join the host of epithets he called himself. He clenched his fists and they complained. That’s when he remembered that he’d spent a fair amount of last night’s fruitless search for Mariya punching the shit out of Tonic’s bouncer.

Steve shook his sore hand and rummaged through his mini-fridge for an orange. He looked in the mirror again and hesitated. He looked in his own eyes and for once didn’t shy away from what he saw there.

God, he was a shit cop. A real shit and a real shit cop. He grimaced, the acidic orange burning the cuts in his mouth.

His cell rang and he answered in a terse, “Yeah.”

“Steven, this is Natalie.”

Steve began rushing around his room tossing stuff into his black gym bag. “Shit, shit,” he muttered. He heard a pause of heavy sighing and he sighed back.  
“Yes, Nat?” He could practically feel her tapping her pen impatiently.

“Your appointment is in half an hour.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m on my way.”

“Really Steven, lying to your therapist is hardly good practice.”

He pushed through the door, heading for the back stairs, the cell pressed to his ear. “I know, but I’m on my way. Honest.” He pushed through the parking lot, sliding into a beat-up blue Chevy.

Natalie was quiet on the other end as the truck roared to life. Steve looked over his shoulder as he backed out, the phone tucked between his head and his shoulder.

“The trial is today, isn’t it?”

Steve’s hands tensed on the wheel as he pulled onto the freeway. “Yup,” he bit out. _Were they really going to get into this now?_

“I’ll be there in 15,” Steve said.

Natalie waited a beat, then sighed. “I’ll see you soon then.”

***

 _“We walk beneath the sun we lie beneath the stars_  
_We grow upon the Earth and this is what we are_  
_It didn't have to be this way but this is what we are”_

***

Tony was looking out the window, trying to calm himself before the trial began, when it happened. His eye seemed to catch on a small figure running on the sidewalk a couple stories below, his brown leather jacket shoving its way through the daily rush of commuters. Tony’s eyes were caught by the runner’s blond buzzcut and the way the man towered over everyone else when his eyes fell shut, his palms went sweaty and his skin cold.

_The sky is a dark expanding cloud and I’m flying up into it and then everything is dark and cold. Extremely cold. My limbs inside the suit are freezing faster than the suit can heat me and Jarvis is speaking what amounts to pronouncements of my death and I realize that I’ve gone and done something incredibly stupid. Some would say incredibly noble, my mind whispers. It’s the stupid part that sounds an awful lot like Rogers and I ache to make some snappy comeback, but already my mind is going foggy and then I’m freefalling._

“Mr. Stark? Mr. Stark?”

Tony snapped his head back from the window—the man, he’s gone— and felt his secretary’s tentative hand on his shoulder. His face felt pulled too tight.

“Yes, Marjorie?” he said, his voice louder than intended.

She ducked her head and thrust forward a message pad. “They’ve called for you downstairs. For trial prep?”

Tony nodded and waved her out of his office. Then he sat down hard on his chair. His body sagged against the stiff steel and he struggled to get his heart rate down.

 _It’s never happened during the day_ , he thought, loosening his tie. Sweat collected at his temples and threatened to spill down his usually immaculate face. _It’s never felt so real._

He looked out the window, his hand over his mouth. His brown eyes didn’t see the other buildings; they were lost in a dream, a dream of death and destruction, but somehow it was more real than the desk he sat at and the trial he’d spent the last six months working on. His arms were tensed, as if they bore the weight of the suit that had moved like an extension of his body.

Tony closed his eyes in one forbidden moment, letting himself recall the sheer power he’d had inside the suit. He’d been invincible.

 _Not quite_ , a voice whispered.

“Shut up, Rogers!” The jokingly serious command escaped his mouth and blasted through the stale quiet air of Mr. Stark’s office. Tony’s eyes flew open and his heart wouldn’t shut up, and he felt a twisted haunt of familiar happiness that’s _not mine._

In his dream, he saw Mariya. She was safe and golden in the glow of the streetlights around the club; how he’d last seen her. She stumbled over her friends, laughing as they flirted with the bouncer— the same tool he’d beat up last night, what a prick, saying he didn’t remember her— and then they were inside Tonic and out of his view, out of his jurisdiction because he was only a detective and her case was closed, her stalker waiting for bail.

Then the dream did what it always did, and he saw the impossible: What he’d never actually seen, but what he’d pictured so often in his mind that it felt real. The cop in him knew it was probably close to what had happened.

Mariya was at the bar and her heels wobbled because she’d had too much to drink (only a few too much though, not enough to equal disaster on a normal night). Her friends were dancing on the floor and their indolent eyes weren’t swaying in her direction enough to catch her following a dim figure dressed in the color of night. The strobe lights reflected off her sequined purse left on the bar, the last evidence of Mariya.

Out in the wet backlot, the figure overpowered Mariya, and she screamed, but not as loud as Usher inside the club, and only Steve heard it, he heard it in all his dreams, the high-pitched wail of the dying.

Steve twitched on the settee, his face clenched to remember the familiar ending.

Mariya turned and faced her attacker, and Steve lunged forward to see him as her face widened in shock—

_I’m going to die. I know in my bones that this is it. Peggy has stopped speaking and all I can hear are her tears coming through the headset._

_My hands tighten on the joystick._

_This plane needs to crash. I have lived my life preparing to die for others, and I’m not afraid, I’m only sad that I’ll miss everything that comes next, and I’m angry that I couldn’t save Bucky with my life— that I have to throw it away and still not be able to save him._

_In the army they told me that they chose me because I was willing to die to save my squadron._

_I didn’t tell them that I was willing to die to save everyone. But I guess they saw right through me._

_As the nose of the plane parts the clouds, I see the ice looming closer, and my thoughts scatter. This is it. This is everything my life has led up to and I whisper one last goodbye, this one to the part of me that wishes there was a way to save everybody and keep on living._

“Steven! Steven Rogers! Captain Rogers!”

Steve jerked awake at that familiar name— _familiar, how?_ , he thought with piercing longing. Natalie was shaking his shoulders, her voice loud in contrast to her normal calm.

He grabbed her arms and pushed them off, panting. His eyes were wild and his body was still feeling the death that had been pressing its cold breath on his neck moments ago.

Natalie sat back down, her hands shaking.

Steve registered her fear and looked down at his own hands. Still as ice and his entire body felt primed to go. He linked his hands, dropping them down. His pale skin was tinged red.

Once she had recovered, Natalie got straight to it. “Steven, what happened?”

He dropped her gaze. It was worse than usual because he had no explanation. He didn’t know what happened, didn’t have a fucking clue, and now he trusted himself even less.

She scribbled furiously in her notebook— she had one just for Steve, he was that fucked up— and then her green eyes pierced his. “You reacted differently than during prior hypnotic episodes. Did you remember something new?”

“It’s not remembering!” Steve spat out, his voice harsh in the still air.

His doctor leaned forward. “Steven, it is important not to ignore the signs the mind sends to you. Trauma makes memories difficult to regain, and they may come across as different than non-traumatic memories—”

He shot to his feet and started pacing, his big body taking up the space. “It wasn’t even about Mariya!”

Natalie stood too, her eyes eager. “That’s good! What else did you see?”

Steve only shook his hand and grabbed a pillow, punching it. Even with his eyes open he could still see the ice coming for him, could still hear his own thoughts as his own bloody death came at him. He shook. _It’s not real, it’s not real._

“Captain Rogers.”

His head snapped to and he was facing Natalie with his hands at his side and his spine straight before he even knew what was happening.

Her smile enraged Steve and he threw the pillow to the ground. “What did you do?” he bellowed. His blood was hot and then cold; anger and then fear warring for control.

Natalie maintained her cool; this is what she had trained for. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in army veterans, especially those with suppressed memories. She was pushing Steven, but he needed this, she could feel the breakthrough tingling in her fingertips.

She held out a calming hand. “You woke up only when I called you that. It obviously means something to you.” She motioned for him to sit down. “We need to deal with this, Steven. I think your memories are coming back.”

His blue eyes narrowed and Natalie felt a ripple of fear despite herself because the strength behind those eyes was beyond any veteran she’d ever counselled.

“What memories?” he growled. “I thought we were trying to get at my memories of Mariya’s kidnapping?”

Natalie inhaled and folded her hands. “I told you that initially because that’s why you were referred to me. But as we spent more sessions together, I began to suspect that you were suppressing more than that.”

Steve sat, hands gripping tight on his knees, shaking his head.

She ticked things off on her fingers. “Your physical fitness, the way you’d case the room every time you came in, your attention to detail, and the way you described the scene of Mariya’s kidnapping convinced me that you have had military training.” Steve stopped breathing as something wound tight in his chest. “You never said anything, and at first I thought it was because of your natural tendency to be private, but then your avoidance and blatant ignoring of the prompts I was giving you showed me that you genuinely don’t remember anything.”

A choked sound left Steve’s mouth and he abandoned control and curled into a ball on the settee, his eyes closed against Natalie’s voice.

She continued, determined to finish. “You clearly suffered a traumatic injury while in the military, and today you remembered the first piece of it. Please. You need to tell me what you remember.”

He looked out over his shielding arm, his bulging muscles a screaming piss-off to the world. “I can’t tell you what I don’t know,” he said through gritted teeth. His arms dropped down and his voice became bewildered. “It doesn’t even make any sense.” The last bit slipped out, and Natalie seized it.

Her face grew as tough as Steve’s. “Say it now Captain Rogers.”

The name cast a spell over Steve and he felt himself describing the memory, the relief loosening his body so much that he unrolled his body, stretching out on the settee, his eyes becoming hazy as he described his last moments before death.

***

 _“The wasted years have passed so slowly_  
_Without connection to my only”_

***

Tony was just sliding out of the elevator into the empty hallway when he saw him. He dropped his coffee and it splattered all over the linoleum floor, distracting the man who had slipped out of the staircase at the end of the hall.

The man looked up at the sound echoing and Tony got caught in his gaze.

They stared in the silence, the coffee cup rolling around in its own filth, Tony’s hand still suspended in the air where it had held the cup.

The man’s hair was short on the sides but wild on top, as if he hadn’t had a haircut in a while, and his stubbled face supported that theory. His jacket was gone, but Tony was sure it was him, the man he’d seen before— before he’d remembered.

Tony felt himself taking a few steps towards him before he even realized it, and he couldn’t even stop himself once he did realize it.

It was the familiarity that snagged him, the subtle way the man’s sweater hugged his chest and the strong way he stood, even the wild anger in the man’s eyes was familiar, though Tony suspected he didn’t normally show that in his electric blue eyes.

Tony stopped a few feet away from the man, close enough to see his chest rising and falling, and to feel the tension fairly vibrating off him.

Tracing over him, Tony’s eyes saw the dull badge half-hidden inside the jacket, the silver star glinting. He felt his mouth lift in a smile that reached his eyes. “Cap?”

***

 _“The end is near defining lonely_  
_Is anybody there to show me”_

***

Steve stumbled down the stairwell, still reeling from Natalie’s revelation about his past, and shaky from his— _real_ — memory.

He pushed his way onto the third floor instead of the main floor with its coffee spots for the exhausted lawyers who populated most of the building. He couldn’t bear to look at anyone today, not with his mind scraped over, his heart haunted by his dream, and the trial in a few hours.

The trial.

His self-recriminations were drawn short when the suit at the other end dropped his coffee.

Steve’s eyes were drawn to the noise, but they screamed to a halt when they crashed into the suit’s eyes. They were staring at him, staring at him as if he’d seen a ghost, and Steve shuddered because he half believed he was a ghost, and that this was all just a dream.

But the deep brown eyes burning into him from across the hall, their owner’s hand almost comically poised in the air holding the cup that was now lolling on the floor amidst brown splatter, were not from his dreams.

Unbelievably, the man in the suit strode right at him, apparently forgetting his briefcase beside the elevator and ignoring his abandoned coffee. Steve felt trapped in the suit’s gaze, and he wanted to run, he wanted to hide, except the look in them was so familiar and safe, like none of Steve’s other memories.

He stopped a foot in front, and Steve could see the man breathing hard, as if holding back. Steve stared at the man’s tie, just for a moment looking for something else there, but the light turned out to be nothing but a reflection off his tie clip.

Then the man said something that snapped Steve’s eyes back up and had his heart in his mouth.

“Cap?”

***

 _“You don't believe in space_  
_You don't believe in light_  
_You don't believe that anything is well beyond your might”_

***

They both stared, each shocked at the name that had left Tony’s mouth.

What shook them even more was that Steve answered it, had said, “Stark,” with such authority that Tony’s knees had weakened.

That voice. That was the voice that had swam in and out of Tony’s dreams for years now. Years of missing sleep, of kicking boyfriends to the curb so he could wake up alone, and of spilling all his secrets to the anonymous phone counselor, just because he’d heard this man’s voice and been unable to shake it.

Unable to shake the agonizing grip of familiarity, the half glimpses of the man— _his back, a hand, a profile swimming in and out of a shadowy world where Tony was someone else._

He’d never told anyone except for that voice on the phone, and now, on the day that it had seemed to take a step for the worse, invading his waking hours, he had walked into it.

Steve’s mouth curled into a smile as a name settled into his gut, a piece of his memory that finally fit. “Tony.”

Tony heard his name on Steve’s lips and he knew he had to test this, to test the new feelings that settled over him like snow. He reached out and flattened his palm over Steve’s chest.

***

 _“We walk across the sky and beneath the ocean floor_  
_We're never going anywhere we've never been before”_

***

Bits of memory swirled through their minds:

 

_I stare at Tony and he’s quiet for once, not daring to make a sarcastic quip because he knows we’re in this thing now, and the teams needs us. The Avengers Initiative is not going to succeed until we can work together as a team, and I know how much Stark loathes the prospect…_

 

_Friggin’ Cap is staring at me again like a stupid Boy Scout because he’s expecting me to agree to Fury’s proposition. He’s dreaming if he thinks I’m going to sign over Stark Industries to that one-eyed manipulator. I know his game. I run his game…._

 

_I want to hit something— No, I want to hit Stark right in his perfect mouth._

_He’s compromising the team, he’s deliberately trying to get under my skin because he knows it’s really between us, never mind Thor. Gods have their own issues that I don’t want to get into because the issues of our world are enough. It seems sleeping under the ice for 70 years doesn’t change much. Same people, same problems…._

 

_Rogers’ righteous attitude is getting on my nerves even more than usual._

_Natasha can tell, she’s been eying the two of us since Fury got us all on board. And they thought Banner would be the issue— Forget it, I’d take Banner any day over this relic._

_I up the insouciance because I know it drives Rogers wild and it’s entertaining to see him recite the same American spiel they used in his day. Righteous, blah, blah, blah, saving people, blah, blah, blah. Let him try to develop a solar-powered water pump that’s light enough to be carried in a backpack, or a roboarm that has perfect connection with its handler so surgery is safer…_

 

_Stark finally shows up when I’m right in the middle of fighting Loki, and a small part of me is happy to see him. The rest of me is trying not to die, because Loki and the scepter are a tad out of my league, not that I’d ever admit it._

_Loki pins me down and I’m pretty sure that this is how I really die, but then Tony swoops in and blasts Loki to the ground, and I stare at the glowing eyes of his helmet._

_Ironman is not the man I thought he was…_

 

_Yeah, I’m a drama queen, but Loki needs to have his ass kicked to the curb, and we need Rogers, so I fly in blasting the Asgardian. This new suit feels good; its blasters have better control and Jarvis helps my vision pick up the split second pause before Loki moves, and this saves my life a couple times._

_Then Rogers is back up and in action, throwing his shield, leaving Loki open for me to blast._

_I call out, and Steve’s ready, and I pick him up and throw him through the air so he can slam his shield into Loki’s chest. The scepter goes flying, picked up by Clint, who scurries back into the helicopter, and Steve and I restrain Loki. Natasha lands and Loki goes on board._

_Waiting for S.H.I.E.L.D.’s jet, I nod at Rogers. “Good fighting, Rogers.”_

_He’s not even winded and this annoys me because if it wasn’t for Jarvis pumping extra O2 into my suit, I’d be doubled over._

_He sends me a sideways smile, which is the closest he gets to smirking, and I shift inside the suit. “You can take off the suit now Tony,” he says. He’s looking right at me, and I tense…._

 

_For once I’m not angry with Tony, and the quiet in the jet feels companionable instead of taut. I lean back, trying to catch some shut eye._

_Honestly, I’m glad to have Tony at my side. He’s a prick, but I understand him better now. I can see why people gravitate towards him— Because underneath all that arrogant bluster— and the arrogance is real, believe me— he’s trying to atone for his mistakes._

_My eyes drift open and land on him, and I want to tell him that he doesn’t need to atone, that it’s okay, but he catches me looking at him, so I say something about the mission._

 

_I catch Rogers looking at me from under his eyelids, and I only hold the look for a few seconds, because I’m afraid to let it last. He doesn’t say anything this time, which is a relief because_

_I really couldn’t handle another lecture from Boy Scout, not after our last argument ended with Banner almost bringing out the Other Guy._

_I stare at the big star on Rogers’ chest instead, and roll my eyes. What an idiot. I let my gaze trace over the rest of him, something I’ve never let myself do because god forbid I stop pushing him to do things my way. Who knows? The whole damn team might fall apart, and as much as I bitched about it before, I don’t want it to now._

_I’d never say it, but the Avengers are my friends, my only friends besides Jarvis and Pepper and Rhodey, and considering that Jarvis, through my own stupidity, turned into Ultron-ish and then into Vision (maybe, sorta, I don’t really want to think about Jarvis right now actually), I’m not so great with my friends._

_I shudder and despite myself and my own internal eye-rolling I can feel my eyes actually getting wet. I tuck my face into my sleeve and wipe hard. Tony Stark does not cry. I’m fucking Ironman!_

 

_The serum worked on my ears too, so I hear when Tony sniffs and I catch him wiping his eyes on his sleeve._

_I go still._

_I am not trained to handle this. But I can’t just let him sit there, so I lean forward. “Do you want to talk about it?”_

_He looks up at me, and then looks ahead at the door dividing the passengers from the pilots. “No, Rogers, I don’t. In fact, why don’t you focus on your own problems instead of mine for a change?”_

_I don’t even blink because I’m onto him, I know his game. “You don’t need to hide Tony. We’re all friends.”_

_He looks at me quickly and then laughs. “Are we?” He rubs his eyes. “The last time I checked, I was the Avengers’ Pariah. Ultron didn’t really go over that well.”_

_I’m actually glad he’s bringing this up because I’ve wanted to ask, “Why did you build Ultron? Why, really?”_

_I hesitate, because this is what I’ve wanted to answer ever since Ultron got out of hand and I had to own up to my mistake. And even compared against my own mistakes, this one was colossal._

 

_Steve’s eyes are friendly, and I can feel myself weakening._

_I tap my fingers on the armrest, idly trying to redesign the interior of Fury’s jet. My fingers gently stop. “I saw you. I saw all of you dead.” I close my eyes, reliving the dream as I do every night. “I was the only one left, and I kept thinking that I could have done something, that I should have done more—”_

 

_I place my hand on his without thinking. I don’t take it back though, not even when his eyes lock with mine._

_They shine with unshed tears and I feel something brewing in my chest._

_I focus, bringing up my memories of losing Bucky. “Don’t do this to yourself, Tony. It’s not a way to live.”_

_A corner of his mouth quirks up. “But it’s a hell of a way to die.”_

_I turn to stone, my hand now gripping his. “Don’t ever say that,” I grit out between clenched lips._

_He leans forward, his own grip on mine now harsh. “I seem to remember you being a Capsicle two years ago. How did that happen if not through your own stupid nobility?”_

_I flinch and I can see that he feels bad, but also smug, because he thinks he’s won. “Don’t fucking pretend that this is the same,” I command. His eyebrows raise at my profanity, but I relish its crudeness to drill home my point. “I let myself die because there was no other way. You are not there. You are not even close to that edge.”_

 

_I hear him, but I can’t believe him, because he doesn’t have my demons— this perfect specimen of a man, the best of humanity conjured to save it in its darkest hour._

_I don’t say that I wanted to die, like Banner, that I tried to end it when my own selfish callousness made me sick. But he reads it in my eyes anyway. “You are better than you were, Stark.”_

_His use of my last name reminds me of who I am, but part of me wants to be Tony again, safe under the banner of Steve’s friendship._

 

_I lean in even closer because I’m desperate for him to understand this, to understand the meaning that I’ve wrung from my life outside of my time. “Underneath all your bullshit you are an Avenger. You protect the weak and defend the righteous and I’m proud to have you at my side.”_

 

_Steve’s words are what I’ve wanted to hear my whole life, and to hear them from the mouth of America’s greatest hero is overwhelming in its significance._

_I soak it in, for once not breaking the moment with a barbed comment or a witty retort._

_Our hands are crushing each other, and as if a switch has been flipped, I see it in Steve’s eyes. Desire._

 

_I’m still staring at him like a total idiot and nearly miss it when I slip up and let it out._

No. No this is not good. Not what I wanted.

Bullshit, _says a voice that sounds exactly like the man whose hand I’m gripping like a lunatic._ I’m exactly what you wanted.

 

The memories are ours, floating in and out of our minds, our own and each other’s voices running their narrations through. The emotions they bring shock and terrify us because they are us and yet are not us, and neither one of us expected to see into the other’s minds this intimately. The thoughts that are a flash flood wash away our old lives, and Ironman and Captain America are our reality.

When they finally end, we see who we are as overlays, the red and gold suit and the arc reactor core glowing overtop of Tony the paralegal, and the blue spanx suit and vibranium shield, both star-spangled, fitting like a glove over Steve the cop. Tony’s hand is right on top of the star and Steve puts his over the arc reactor, and for an instant we remember everything as it slides into place.

***

 _“It doesn't have to be this way_  
_This isn't who we are”_

***

Steve felt drunk, like he was on another one of his benders, only now just coming off the spinning high. He was still touching him, touching this stranger who was no stranger. _Tony, it’s Tony_ , his mind crowed, even as he struggled to understand how the hell any of this was happening.

He leaned his head against Tony’s. “I remember you,” he said, saying a giant fuck it to the Universe, because he was a man out of his time and now out of his reality, and Tony Stark was the only constant.

Tony’s face sagged, and Steve felt his relief in the way his entire body softened. “I’m not crazy,” he murmured, rubbing his face over Steve’s stubble.

“Well I have been seeing a therapist for PTSD and amnesia, so I wouldn’t bet on it.” Steve nuzzled right behind Tony’s ear and heard him take in a sharp breath. “As long as you’re having the same dream.”

Tony’s eyes closed and he pressed his palms into Steve’s back. “All my life,” he managed to say.

Steve drew back and stared hard into Tony’s eyes, frowning as he thought. Tony kept looking because the damn blues blazed into him and he was pierced by their intensity.

“If this isn’t real,” Steve began slowly, “I don’t want to know.”

Tony nodded. “If it’s real then we’ve got more problems than if it’s not.”

Both men were sobered, remembering the Sokovia Accords and they flinched; Tony remembering Rhodey and his parents, Steve, Tony’s anger and Bucky’s pain.

Tony sucked in a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”

It was Captain America who regarded Tony, not Steve his fellow Avenger, and definitely not the messed up cop Steve Rogers. His gaze was like ice, and suddenly his arms changed to bands around him. Tony could feel the same change in him, and then it was civil war again, both irreparably on opposite sides, driven to saving the world in the only way they knew how.

But Mariya intruded upon Steve once again at this most inappropriate time, and he gasped as the memories of a washed up cop splashed over the self-righteous justifications of a hero who’d made hard choices, but never once had to consider his own self as the enemy. The supreme assurance in his core shattered because in this reality, Steve was disgusted with himself. He loathed who he’d become, and he dragged his fists through the criminal underworld because some part of him was hoping that he’d take one too many swings and finally, finally, die.

He opened his eyes and saw Tony’s face after his apology and he felt ashamed, so ashamed that he’d failed to understand where Tony’s opinion came from. He swallowed because he realized that Natasha and Wanda felt the same, and knew the danger that comes from selfish arrogance. He remembered Tony’s parents, and saw it through Tony’s eyes, and knew that he had failed as a friend and as an Avenger.

“I’m so sorry Tony,” he whispered.

***

 _“The wasted years have passed so slowly_  
_Without connection to my only_  
_I will not live without you near me_  
_Love cannot fit inside a theory”_

***

Steve’s alarm went off and he glanced at his watch. “Dammit.” His lips thinned. “I have a trial in fifteen minutes.”

Tony nodded several times, turning his head away. The trial. His head snapped back. “Walker versus the Crown?”

Steve stiffened and his arms slid off Tony’s waist. He drew back and crossed his arms. “You’re going too?”

He nodded. “I’m a paralegal for the Crown.” His eyes narrowed. “Why are you going?”

He scuffed his feet “I got a summons.” His face was harder when he met Tony’s eyes again. “Defense wants to argue that I fucked up the interview and get the confession to be inadmissible.”

It was still a shock to hear Steve swear, and Tony’s mind tsks _Language!_ before he can help it. “Did you?” he asked.

Steve jerked his head. “No. I did clock the guy when he was out on bail though.”

Tony sighed. “Well I guess that’s a little better.” He aimed a rakish grin at Steve, whose face cracked into a sweet smile. “I’ll see you after, Rogers.” Tony winked, excited to get the trial over with so he could walk with his dream again.

Steve gave a crisp nod, his face breaking into an even wider grin, making his whole face change into a softer, stronger man. He cupped his hand over Tony’s cheek briefly. “See you later, Stark.”

 

***

 

_The first day of the trial is over and I managed not to shout at the defense lawyer and Tony didn’t forget to hand over the evidence briefs at the right times, so we’re both happy when we meet in the empty courtroom._

 

_I roll my eyes. “You need to work on your stage presence,” I tease. “Guardia was about to roast your ass in front of the jury before Hill objected.”_

_Steve accepts my rebuke. He jumps onto the bench, letting his eyes rake over me. This is not the Captain I remember._

 

_I’m practically giddy because Guardia lost the jury today when he tried to make Walker seem like a stand up guy, and because Tony is here. Actually here with me, and we both remember each other and it’s still okay. It all feels a bit silly, unreal, but that makes this easier._

 

_I’m not completely surprised when Rogers puts the moves on me— seriously though, he’s such a classic James Dean wannabe, with all his rebelling and causes— but I am surprised that he’s so blatant about it. He’s acting more like me than I am._

 

_God, Tony tastes so good, like coffee and heat and primal idiocy because let’s face it, my Avenger is a tool._

 

_Fuck, Steve is doing a number on me, it’s like my head’s going to pop off from the force of his kiss. I’m not complaining though, not at all, unhh, god, he’s really good at this—When did he have time to practice that?_

 

_Tony starts to kiss me back, and it’s something else entirely to be the sole focus of his intensity. His hands are testing me like I’m one of his suits, and I can sympathize with his need to be one with them because I sure as hell would like to be that close to Tony Stark._

 

_We manage to cool it just enough to get out of the courtroom and hop in a cab, heading to my place because Steve’s impersonal hotel rooms are not what we want right now._

_I push open the door with one foot, pulling him in by his jacket lapels and he slams the door shut behind us._

_I don’t think about the trial that’s continuing tomorrow, or about the Sokovia Accords, or about Captain America or Ironman. In this room there’s only Steve Rogers and Tony Stark and I am not a man to let what I want get away._

 

_We seem to have the same idea about not talking and for once I’m glad to be Steve the cop in this world, because he has the guts to go for what he wants, instead of hiding behind his shield._

_And I’m ripping off Tony’s white shirt, because I want skin on skin and it’s so goddamn freeing to be a man instead of a soldier._

 

_I gasp, stilling suddenly, and I’m embarrassed when the tears slide down my skin; but then Steve wipes them away deliberately with his thumb, looking into my eyes while he’s inside me and this dream, this reality, is perfect._

***

 _“The end is near defining lonely_  
_Is anybody there to show me”_

***

Steve wakes up gasping, his heart leaping in his chest. He looks out the window of the jet, seeing the dark clouds rushing by. A cold wind rises against his face. His eyes pinch shut and Tony’s body is beneath his for a moment. Then he shakes his head and sits in the co-pilot’s seat beside Clint, shoving the dream to the back of his mind.

 

Tony flinches awake, his mind still swimming under the weight of his dreams. He touches the arc reactor in his chest, letting the light bleed through. He walks over to the window of Stark Tower’s penthouse floor. The lone ‘A’ dangles on its last legs.

Tony closes his eyes and sees their limbs tangled together under ivory sheets. Opening his eyes again, he knocks his fist against the glass. _It was only a dream._


End file.
